1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
FIG. 12 is a side cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal device according to a related art. As a liquid crystal device having a liquid crystal layer 50 interposed between a viewer side substrate 10 and a light source side substrate 20, a semitransparent reflective type liquid crystal device having a reflection display mode and a transmission display mode is known. As such a semitransparent reflective type liquid crystal device, a device which includes a reflective layer 27 made of a metal material such as aluminum and provided at the inner side of the light source side substrate is suggested. In the reflection display mode, external light incident from the viewer side substrate 10 is transmitted through the liquid crystal layer 50, reflected from the reflective layer 27 provided on the inner surface of the light source side substrate 20, transmitted through the liquid crystal layer 50 again, and emitted from the viewer side substrate 10, thereby contributing to display. In contrast, in the transmission display mode, the light source light incident from the light source side substrate 20 is transmitted through the liquid crystal layer 50 and emitted from the viewer side substrate 10 to a viewer side, thereby contributing to display. Accordingly, a region in which the reflective layer 27 is formed becomes a reflection region R and a region in which the reflective layer 27 is not formed becomes a transmission region T.
In the semitransparent reflective type liquid crystal device, while the incident light into the transmission region T is transmitted through the liquid crystal layer 50 only once, the incident light into the reflection region R is transmitted through the liquid crystal layer 50 two times. Accordingly, retardation (phase difference) occurs between the transmission region T and the reflection region R. Therefore, in order to reduce the thickness of the liquid crystal layer 50 in the reflection region R to less than that of the liquid crystal layer 50 in the transmission region T, a multi-gap structure in which a liquid crystal layer thickness adjusting layer 24 is formed is employed. By adjusting the retardation by the multi-gap structure, the light transmission becomes uniform in the transmission region T and the reflection region R and thus a liquid crystal device having excellent display quality can be obtained.
In this multi-gap structure, an electrode 25 is formed on the inner surface of the liquid crystal layer thickness adjusting layer 24 and an alignment layer 29 made of polyimide is formed on the inner surface of the electrode 25. The alignment layer 29 is generally formed by a liquid phase process such as a flexographic printing method. However, when the material liquid of the alignment layer 29 is coated on the inner surface of the substrate 20 on which the liquid crystal layer thickness adjusting layer 24 is formed, a liquid pool 29a may occur at any position of the edge (lower corner of the liquid crystal layer thickness adjusting layer 24) of the transmission region T. When the material liquid is dried, the thickness of the alignment layer 29 becomes ununiform and thus irregularities occur.
In the paragraph 0016 of JP-A-2004-325822, there is disclosed “Since a recessed part where a projecting insulating film is not formed is continuously formed between adjacent pixels, an alignment layer may be moved along the recessed part between the adjacent pixels when the alignment layer is formed to cover the projecting insulating film and the recessed part. Accordingly, since a material of the alignment layer can be suppressed from being pooled only in the recessed part of some pixel, the alignment layer formed in the recessed part becomes uniform in a plurality of pixels and thus the thickness of the alignment layer can be substantially uniform in the respective pixels. As a result, it is possible to suppress display quality from deteriorating due to ununiformity in the thickness of the alignment layer formed in the recessed part”.
However, disturbance in the alignment of liquid crystal molecules occurs in the vicinity of the recessed part. When the disturbance in the alignment extends to the inside the pixel, light leakage occurs in black display. When the recessed part is formed between all the adjacent pixels, a display property seriously deteriorates.